With only two days remaining until the August 1 nationwide protest, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), His Eminence The Most Rev Dr. Daniel Okoh, has urged the protest organizers to exercise caution. While acknowledging their right to protest, he expressed hope that Nigeria’s issues are not insurmountable.
Okoh made these remarks to journalists in Benin City after the thanksgiving service concluding the 2024 Annual International Conference of the Men’s Fellowship of the Christ Holy Church International, where he serves as General Superintendent.
Okoh noted that other countries have faced similar challenges and overcome them. He mentioned that praying for Nigeria’s situation was a key focus during the three-day conference, which attracted participants from various African countries.
According to him, “The world is passing through very difficult times and we bring it home back to Nigeria, people are passing through all kinds of suffering, many people are crying for food, they are hungry, all of us feel it and there is so much hunger in the land and the breakdown of major infrastructure, all our roads are in very poor shape but in all these, the people of God remain the ones who will give hope and who will take leadership to the people by the way of encouragement, the way of hope.
“We know what our God can do, our God can turn around the fortunes of a nation and it doesn’t take him more than a moment to do that, we have had examples in the scriptures, we have also had examples in history of the nations of the world that have passed through this state that Nigeria is now but eventually they survived it and God proved that he will never abandon His people and by this conference we are encouraging our people and we ask our people to go and encourage others that even in the midst of troubles, we believe that our God has listened to our prayers, we believe that rather than raising voices of despair, we raise voices of hope.”
On the protest, he said “Protest is legal in every democracy, we stand with the people of Nigeria in solidarity and we pray that the government of the day will listen to advice so that we will be able to avert all these troubles that people envisage but I am hopeful that God who has brought us together as a nation will not abandon us, He will make people in authority to do what will make the people to rejoice and He will do it as we continue to pray for our nation and for those in authority.
“In light of the planned protests scheduled to commence on 1st of August, CAN urges all Nigerians to consider alternative means of expressing their grievances. We recommend giving the government more time to address these pressing concerns. This period should be used to explore other legal avenues that will not easily give hoodlums the opportunity to hijack the exercise to destroy our national assets or endanger lives and properties. Dialogue, petitions, and town hall meetings are viable options that can yield positive results without the risk of disorder.
“We call on the government to cut the cost of governance and expedite its efforts to alleviate the hardships in the land. The opulent lifestyle of political office holders must be addressed to demonstrate the sincerity of those in government to improve the living conditions of the people. Likewise, it is imperative that the government implements the newly approved national minimum wage to provide immediate relief to struggling families.”
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